In a business environment, periodic assessments are typically performed to monitor the progress and growth of the business and to identify areas of strength and flag potential weaknesses. In a retail business environment, such assessments typically take the form of sales data outlining generated revenue, such as the gross receipts or the net profit of a particular store.
A business environment includes a number of employees, each contributing their skills and knowledge to further the business. Maximum productivity and efficiency occurs when each employee is functioning to utilize their skills and knowledge to their fullest potential. An employee undertaking a role that does not invoke all their skills and knowledge may be underutilized, while an employee having insufficient skill or knowledge for a particular role will likely not be productive or efficient.
Periodic assessment of the contribution of each employee is typically performed to identify achievement for items such as bonuses and merit increases. Such an assessment is reported to a central home office or accounting office. However, employee specific feedback concerning skills and knowledge is typically not communicated back to the employee for future development. Achievement may be recognized in the form of a bonus or large merit increase, while shortfalls may be met with a lower than average merit increase. Employee specific feedback regarding skill and knowledge development, and tracking employee development over time, is not provided. Further, some organizations may not even communicate employee specific sales data to the home office, but rather employ only global figures for a particular site or store, leaving the individual employee merit determinations up to the local manager.
Accordingly, a typical periodic assessment does not provide individual direction through formal training and proactive skill development. It would be beneficial to provide a system in which employee specific feedback and direction is provided in an iterative manner to develop individual skills and knowledge to increase productivity and efficiency, which in turn increases sales and revenue and allows the business to grow.